


what's the story, morning glory?

by but_seriously



Category: Gossip Girl, The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: AM I FORGETTING ANYONE?, F/M, this is an ensemble fic basically because i do miss writing these
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-07-28 11:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7637614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/but_seriously/pseuds/but_seriously
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Elena Gilbert is ready to walk down the aisle with none other than Nate Archibald, but both the Mystic Falls Mystery Gang <i>and</i> the Non-Judging Breakfast Club are hellbent on stopping them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flesh_and_bone_telephone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flesh_and_bone_telephone/gifts).



> i originally posted this years and years and _years_ ago (four, to be exact, when i was still a youngin') on ff.net. and then, like a responsible, well-meaning writer of fic, left it to fend itself against time and dust.
> 
> until today. oh ho - today is the day Lazarus rises up from the dead. TODAY IS THE DAY I DECIDE TO GET OFF MY ASS. TODAY! IS THE DAY! I FINALLY POST UP THINGS I'D WRITTEN FOUR YEARS AGO BUT NEVER POSTED IN THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM THAT I MIGHT FINISH IT FIRST.
> 
> HA! I THOUGHT! BITCH, I THOUGHT!

**part un**

 

 

**1000**

Nate remembers the first time he held a gun. Grandfather standing by his side with a hand on his shoulder and Tripp on his left, he raised it sky high and shot it straight into the sun. The crack of the gun lasted longer than his eyes could follow the bullet, but Grandfather's grin was so huge it was a wonder his face didn't split in half.

He squints down the length of the Remington 857, presses two fingers to the magazine. "Feels good."

"Spoken like a true Vanderbilt." He'd clapped Nate's arm one last time before strolling down the lawn into the Vanderbilt House, Tripp trailing by his side. Tripp looks back once - to cast Nate a look of... _something_. He can't really place it.

The sky's blue and the grass is greener than he's ever seen. He considers, for a fleeting second, looking for the stray bullet before any of the horses get to it, but he hears familiar footsteps trudging - no, not trudging, God forbid if Blair Waldorf ever did anything in manly gaits - in his direction.

Blair sidles up to him with a glass of lemonade in hand, an absolute vision with her sun-kissed skin and a flowered headband in her hair. "You looked great, Nate." Her Vanderbilt promise ring glints on her finger and he swallows involuntarily, hesitating on the simple task of reaching for the chilled drink.

As Blair chatters beside him in her yellow sundress, he sips his drink and thinks this must be what the sound of settling is like. Visits to Grandfather's on the weekends, cold lemonade on warm afternoons, ivy-covered brownstones and a waiting list on only the most prestigious schools for their future children...

Abruptly, he drops the tumbler to the ground and cocks his gun skywards, letting loose a couple more rounds. Blair shrieks, her neat hair flying everywhere in glossy curls, and Nate takes deep breathes, running a finger down the barrel of his shotgun.

"A little warning would've been nice," Blair grouses, but it's all Nate can do to keep the smile off his face. He offers her his arm and rests his Remington by his side, where it hums with every step they take.

 

 

**0990**

He senses sunshine on his cheeks and pancakes in the air and lilac on his lips.

Usually he wakes up with hair in his mouth and a warm weight on his chest, toes tangled together like a child's first lace-up shoe. He'll wake up to groggy giggles and coffee that's always too hot, too bitter, but intermediately just right. This morning all he feels are cold sheets when he reaches an arm across the bed.

He licks his lips - sweet and heady, like honeysuckle - and forces an eye open. The sun filters through the white drapes across his window in a way that's almost delicate, but hits his pupils with the force of a thousand laser beams. There's something dried and dead in the back of his throat and he groans, reaching for the alarm clock. She'd let him sleep in, even when he'd specifically told her not to, _again_.

"Morning, sleepy head."

Stretching, he turns to see her in one of his Brooks Brothers shirts, leaning casually against his doorframe, long fingers wrapped around a coffee mug.

"G'morning," he croaks, and tried sits up. He ends up slumped against the headboard instead. "Where's Chuck?"

"Still sleeping off his hangover." She traipses to where he is and drops the mug into his waiting hands. "I made breakfast, and there's two aspirin waiting for you on the counter."

He sets the mug on the bedside table and tugs her down onto the bed with him, holding on tight when she attempts to squirm away. "You're a saint. Back to bed."

"Nate!" she squeals, wriggling away. "It's eleven o'clock. I'm going to miss class—I'm already late as it is."

"So miss it," is all he says. He breaths in the smell of her freshly-washed hair, all lilac and sunshine, and feels a smile curving on his lips. She allows him a moment to tangle his fingers into her hair, press a whisper of a kiss on her temple, trace a finger along her jaw before she pulls away, with the smallest of pouts on her lips.

"I'd love to, but I can't," she says. "Finals are next week." She rolls out of bed, grabs her messenger bag resting at the floor of the bed, and loops a vibrant scarf around her neck. "Not everyone can afford Columbia - some have to work off their scholarships." There's no bitterness in her voice as she pokes his side. "Go back to bed if you want, but don't forget the aspirin."

"Bye," he calls, forlorn, and tugs her down for one lass kiss. She laughs against his lips and flits out of the room, leaving him bemoaning last night's tequila shots against his pillow.

 

 

**0980**

She hadn't left ten minutes before he hears his BlackBerry vibrate. A good bye text, he guesses hopefully. _She's so cute,_ he thinks as he reaches for his phone with a smile coming together on his lips - until he sees that it's not a text, it's a phone call.

 _Hell no_ , his buzzed mind snips. _Too early_. Somehow the tiny voice in the back of his mind always sounds like Jenny.

But it's Blair, he argues, running an exasperated hand over his face.

 _Nate_. Oh, he can so picture the trademark Humphrey eyebrow-raise. _You're clearly too shitfaced to string a coherent sentence together. Blair's going to eat you alive._

...But it's _Blair_.

_You asked for it..._

He groans and hits answer. "Blair," he says, voice gruff from sleep. "What's u—"

" _Nathaniel Fitzwilliam Archibald!_ "

Oh shit. "What is it this time?" he moans, rolling over so his face is smothered in his pillow. "If it's about Dan, I already told him you don't like people touching your first edition Tolstoy—"

"That problem's been fixed, no thanks to y—urgh, Serena says hi," she says. "Anyway, I'm calling because— _yes, I told him you said hi_ —"

"Hi, Serena." Nate smiles wanly. "How's Paris?"

"It's great!" she trills. "Blair's got a _date_ —"

"Which, while being deserving my outmost attention right now, doesn't hold a candle to what I'm about to say to you!" Blair fumes, but is cut off by Serena's muffled response.

"Placate your best friend, she's being a—what does Dan call it? A dictator? Yeah." He tries to put on his best _you need to calm down_ voice. "Blair, you're being an Evil Dictator of Taste again."

It doesn't work. "Can it, Archibald."

In the background, Serena laughs. " _I'm sure it's not that bad, Blair_ ," she says. "No hazing, no schemes-just ask."

"Fine," snaps his ex-girlfriend. "What's your deal, Nate? I— _we_ —have to find out you have a girlfriend though _Facebook_?"

Nate's eyes snap open. Oh _shit_. "Okay, I understand why you might be mad—"

"Mad doesn't even begin to cover it," Blair screeches through the phone. " _'Nate Archibald is in a relationship_?' Why does that sound so ominous and _why_ isn't there a link to her profile?"

Nate blows out a gust of air. "Serena?" he asks hopefully.

"On your own, Nate." Serena says. There's the distinct sound of the phone being grabbed from hands as Blair's voice fills his ear once again.

"Well?" she demands.

Nate begins slowly, "She has really possessive exes—"

(Surprise, surprise) Blair cuts him off. "Of _course_ you choose the girl lugging around the biggest baggage there is—"

"—her name's Elena, and she's from Virgi—no, Blair, do _not_ look her up-"

His phone is practically blasted apart by the shriek Blair's emitting.

"Pin-straight _unstyled_ hair? Really, Nate? And what colour palette are her highlights? My highly-trained eyes can't place them at all."

"That's because those aren't highlights," Nate says with a faint hint of pride. "It's her natural hair colour."

" _It's her natural hair colour,"_ Nate hears Blair hissing furiously to Serena. To Nate, she announces, "We're getting on the first flight home. Tonight."

Serena sighs. "Don't you think you're overreacting, B?"

"Look, Blair - I know you're worried about me, what with Juliet and Char—Ivy, whatever." Nate shakes his head. "But I'm fine. In fact, better than fine. I have something to tell you."

"By all means, spill. I don't think anything could be worse this."

Nate takes a deep breath. "Actually..."

 

 

**0970**

Against the silver backdrop of the morning sky, the roll of the ocean waves seem almost languorous as they wash over his toes, seeping into his sand-caked jeans and rolling over his chest. It's soothing, he thinks, as the water washes away some of the sand, because there's sand everywhere—in his hair, in his fingernails, in the crevices of his clothing and in places he'd rather not mention.

In the distance, a bird whoops and the waves crash and collide with the slick black rocks that make up the base of the nondescript island.

Damon stretches a hand out, rakes his fingers through the wet sand surrounding him, and brushes a shell off his cheek as he slowly awakens. He stretches again, hearing his joints—stiff from his night on the beach—crack and pop.

 _Crack and pop_ , he snickers in his slightly inebriated state. _I'm Cap'n Crunch_ —wait. His eyebrows come together and he wonders if he'd gotten it all mixed up. After a few minutes of thought it finally comes to him. _Rice Krispies_ , man. Rice Krispies snap and crackle and pop. It's not Cap'n Crunch, he _had_ gotten them wrong.

"I'm not Captain Crunch," he notes with a sorrowful tune to his sigh.

"That you're not," pipes up a voice from his side and Damon jumps about a mile, turning on his side only to land face-first in the sand. He resurfaces, looking very much like a drowned seagull, coughing up sand and minute bits of seaweed.

Caroline's crossing her legs at her ankles and leaning back on her elbows, enjoying the morning breeze on her cheeks. Her hair's in a tight braid down her back and her skin glows like she's been in the sun for a while.

"You look pathetic," she announces.

"Go on, judge away," Damon responds sulkily, still spluttering on the sand. "Shame turns me on."

When he's done picking out bits of rock from between his teeth, he lays back, hands crossed behind his head. Neither of them say anything as they try to differentiate between the edge of the world and the never-ending sky.

The sun's not out yet, and the sky's a magnificent shade of pink and orange. With the waves lapping at their bare feet and sand underneath their elbows, Damon sighs again, a resigned one, and asks, "How'd you find me?"

"Klaus," Caroline replies simply.

"...Okay," Damon says, a frown fusing his eyebrows together. Because that's not weird at all. "How did _Klaus_ find me?"

A shrug. "Katherine."

He groans. Of course. "In case the letter I left behind stating, and I quote, _Bye guys, I'm leaving forever and so totally do not want to be found_ wasn't enough of a hint for you, it meant I was leaving forever and so totally do not want to be found."

"Because that's really the mature way to go," Caroline quips, rolling over to face him.

"I have every right to kick you off Feather Duster Island, you know." He turns away so he won't have to look at her face. "Just try me."

The blonde raises an eyebrow. " _Feather_ _Duster_ Island?"

"Hey, I found it—I have every right to name it whatever the hell I want," he grouses, his cheek to the sand. "Why are you here, anyway?"

Caroline's bending over him, biting down on her lower lip. "Elena sent me. Sent a bunch of us, actually," Caroline admits, pulling something out of her backpack. "She didn't see any other way—the invitations she's been sending have been bouncing back."

"Invitation? What do you mea..." Damon trails his eyes downwards at the envelope in her hands, and before Caroline can hold it out to him, force it into his hands even, he's already blurred to his feet and running away from her, away from the envelope, at 180 miles per hour.

 

 

**0960**

" _Damon fricken Salvatore!"_

Caroline's running as fast as her feet can take her, but Damon's about 146 years older than her, prefers not to stick to a bunny diet, and ultimately faster. She curses the back of his head and kicks sand under her feet from trying to catch up to him.

"Just leave me alone!" Damon yells over his shoulder, skirting around the mouth of the jungle and taking a sudden turning. Caroline barely has enough to gasp before he's suddenly on her, pushing her face first into the sand with his calloused fingers.

Sand and swear words fall from her mouth, and she shoots a hand out to grab hold of his ankle before he can quite get away. He ends up toppling on top of her, kicking more sand into her face.

" _Did you know,"_ Caroline screeches as she manages to set both her knees on his chest, "how long it took me to get here? Six days, Damon. _Six days_."

Damon wrestles himself out of her grip and takes off in the other direction, but this time Caroline's close at her heels, screaming murder.

"Because it _turns_ _out_ ," Caroline continues, her voice rippling in the wind, "there aren't any boats that know the location of _Feather Duster Island_ —" her lip curls, "—so I had to fricken _swim_ here."

"Next time, just tell Elena to send me a _Facebook invite_ ," Damon growls, digging his heels into the sand as he finally stops. There's an undecipherable look of utter madness in his eyes as he steps towards her. "Since apparently that's the only way I could find out she'd gotten _engaged_."

Caroline bends down, catching her breath—her human instincts getting the better of her. "Damon—"

"So excuse my French when I say you can fuck off with that stupid envelope," he all but yells over the sound of the wind, and turns his back on her. He hasn't even taken five steps until he hears a deafening sound in his ears and something wet and sharp thwacking the back of his head. He stills, narrowing his eyes. "You didn't..."

Damon whips his head around to see Caroline already throwing her arm back to launch another sand-ball at him. "Do you know how worried we've been, Damon? Huh?" She grunts as she hurls the glob of hardening sand straight at his face, but he ducks just in time.

"Stefan's in Tokyo looking for you. _Tokyo_." She scoops up another load of sand in her fists. "Ric hasn't left the boarding house in two months, just in case you decide to come back for your stuff."

"You don't do that to the people who care about you," she says.

"You don't expect them to just stop caring just because you're selfish enough to disappear," she says.

"Just because you're selfish enough to run away," she says.

"Just because you're not enough of a man to allow Elena this one moment of happiness," she says, finally reaching him and slamming more wet sand onto his chest. "I booked a thirteen hour flight to get here. Spent two days combing the mainland looking for you. _Swam_ here, not knowing if you were going to be here, but hoping—" Caroline grips his soaked shirt in her hands, blinking furiously, "—just _hoping_ you would be, anyway."

Damon sighs. "Caroline..."

"Stefan's been a wreck for three months," Caroline finishes quietly, pulling out the crumpled cream envelope again. "If you're not going to do this for Elena, at least do this for him."

An obscure sound—a mixture between a groan and a very exasperated banshee-like shriek—rips from the back of Damon's throat as he acquiesces, pinching the bridge of his nose wearily. After a while, he takes the envelope Caroline's brandishing expectantly in his face and tears it open.


	2. Chapter 2

**part deux**

 

 

**0950**

There's a ratting, a tapping, and then all-out banging at the door, and Serena decides that she better get out of bed before the screeching—

_"_ _Serena van der Woodsen, you open this door right now or so help me God I will cancel all your appointments with Marc this week!"_

…starts.

She pokes her tussled blonde head out of her Egyption cotton bedspread and shuffles sleepily to the door, pausing only to slip her feet into fluffy white slippers – Blair's in a Volatile Mood and she needs to tread lightly today. She swings the door open to the smell of coffee, fresh croissants and Chanel no. 5.

"Hi, Blair," she greets warmly, gathering breakfast into her arms, pointedly ignoring the deep scowl on her best friend's face. She shuffles away to the kitchen before the scowl decides it needs to talk. "What brings you here at…" She tips it all onto the island counter and taps her manicured fingers on her hip, "…6:52am?"

Blair just huffs and settles down onto one of the stools, ripping into her croissant as if it had done her a personal wrong, chewing on her berries so furiously that her lips become stained with it. Serena tilts her head, admiring the colour while she nurses her coffee. Blair isn't exploding yet, which is good – but also a tad worrying. Usually she'd have about five schemes sorted into the degree of their effectiveness up her sleeves by now.

(Idly she wonders if Blair really had cancelled all of her hair appointments—she could use a deep conditioning after hearing The News. Blair hadn't taken it as well as Nate would have liked, and _that_ was only putting it lightly.)

Blair pushes her hair behind her ear and heaves a dramatic sigh, and Serena takes this as her que to ask, "Is this Nate-marrying-Elena—"

" _Suburban dweller_ ," Blair snips, buttering herself a scone, and Serena suppresses an eyeroll.

"Is this _thing_ still bothering you?" When Blair doesn't answer, she sighs. "You've had a week to stew, B."

"And Nate has the rest of his life!" Blair slams down her butter knife. The diamonds of her tennis bracelet glint in the sunlight as she runs a hand through her hair. "Honestly, we leave him alone for _one_ semester…"

 

 

**0940**

After Blair leaves, with extravagant declarations of "this has got to be stopped!" and "at the very least let us do something about her _hair_ ", Serena sighs and looks out the window with glassy eyes. Nate had insisted they meet Elena, the girl Blair had deemed Small-town Seductress. _She's amazing_ , Nate had enthused over the phone, voice still rattly. The aftermath of a wild night out. "She has these huge eyes that can just see right through me, and usually that'd pretty much freak me out, but she has this _way_ …" Nate trails off, frustrated. "It's like she has this ability to just _know_ every part of me."

Serena opens her mouth to interrupt, to tell him that four months is too little a time, until Nate finishes with: "And I want her to."

Well, that's that.

She'd be lying if she said this didn't bother her. She had after all been in love with him, a whirlwind of a whipped-cream and strawberry-topped romance, and unapologetic, uncharted island of teenage hormones and angst, and it had all been great, and it had all been _good_ (she knows the difference between the two by now, and realizes that one is definitely not better than the other), but what was it they said about all good things..?

Her phone bleats a tune, and it's Blair, and judging from all the abbreviations she must be click-clacking down the sidewalk, tapping into her phone with a vengeance meant for year-end sales at Neiman Marcus.

_This has gt 2 be stopped!_

And shortly after that, _I hve a Plan. Come 2 the Palace 11!_

Serena sighs and pulls her hair into a bun, bracing herself for the inevitable.

 

 

**0930**

"This place looks magnificent."

Chuck lowers his coffee cup, narrows his eyes, but manages to mask it off as flexing his eye-sockets. Of course, that would be the answer given should the man sitting before him bring up his insolence – what would _he_ know of new age face-contouring? Waving aside the fact that, yes, it's all made up, and, _no_ , it would do no good to piss off one of his father's oldest friends.

So no, Chuck Bass wasn't narrowing his eyes out of suspicion of the man in the sharpest suit he's ever seen (he makes a mental note to call Thierry and find out this man's labels). He gives his coffee a sharp sniff and sets down the dainty china. "I know you normally do business with my father. But in light of… recent events…"

"Ah, yes." Elijah Mikaelson straightens the butter knife that had been set before him until it is uniform with the rest. "His passing. My condolences."

Chuck nods. Elijah surveys the room, commenting on the chandeliers.

"Forgive me if this sounds rude, but _dodgy_ and _plebian_ are the words that come to mind when your brother described this place just last year in his review." Chuck smirks. "Far from _magnificent_."

"That business?" Elijah waves it away like a bad smell. "You must forgive Kol. He's an impulsive being. He does what he wants, when he wants. If anything, it gave the Palace a boost in guests, did it not?"

Chuck scratches at his smooth chin. He supposed it did. He'd _have_ to agree anyway – the Mikaelsons held a large part of his company's shares, plus – it doesn't sound like Elijah was actually apologizing, anyway. "Right. Let's talk business."

Elijah surveys him, his eyes raking over the violet square peeking out of his pocket, the Bass family crest that glints on his cufflinks. He's struck by how _old_ this Elijah character's eyes are, so penetrating is his gaze. Chuck sucks in a slow breath. "How old did you say you were? You look really – I mean, I know you and my father go way back."

And here he is, looking not a day over thirty-five.

"Your father admired our company for our privacy." Elijah smiles, and he looks so amused that Chuck grits his teeth together – he is _no child_. "As for my youth, well – I eat a lot of muesli."

"What brings you to New York?" Chuck asks brusquely after clearing his throat.

"A favour, actually. For an old friend." Elijah leans forward, eyes finally moving away from Chuck's. Whatever he's found in them, he seems satisfied, and Chuck feels – relief? – flooding through him.

You are no child, he reminds himself again.

Elijah asks, "I've been told you're well-acquainted with an Elena Gilbert?"

Except that coming from Elijah Mikaelson, a question rarely ever sounds like a question.


	3. Chapter 3

—

**what's the story, morning glory?**

**part trois**

 

 

 

**0920**

Go down the hall and follow the marble, Nate had told her, and she'd followed the marble and found the pantry alright, except she hadn't expected the pantry to be the size of the entire kitchen back in Mystic Falls.

Elena pushes the door open but doesn't immediately go to find what she'd been looking for – she takes a deep, shuddering breath, inhaled enough air to hopefully tame the harried beating of her heart. They were only his friends. Only Nate's friends. The friends she'd never met before, and the waver in his smile when he'd told her of the "surprise engagement party" didn't exactly convince her.

This is ridiculous.

Elena's died and come back.

Elena's had Aunt Jenna die in her arms.

Elena's had to face Klaus head on without as much as an oak stake dagger hidden behind her back.

Elena's seen the devil's true face and not even flinched.

Elena was a member of _Caroline Forbes'_ prom committee, for God's sake.

While all of this is enough to ensure her a medal of, like, valour and a lifetime of PTSD (Caroline, when asked to choose between two colour schemes, can be downright terrifying) none of them prepared her for this—

Sunday brunch with Upper East Siders.

"Nervous, Elena?"

Elena gives a sharp gasp. Without thinking she'd grabbed the first thing her hands met, and had hurled it in the direction of the all-too-recognizable voice.

Klaus catches the tin deftly before it hits his face. "Caviar? Good call. The hors d'oeurvres were rather… lacking."

**0910**

Had she not been so taken off-guard by his presence she would have come up with a better comeback than grabbing a can of tomato paste next.

"I'm on vervain," she warns. Her shoulders are stiff, she's standing warily, ready to run. She'd never stopped taking vervain, even after leaving everything behind.

"I suppose you think that makes a difference," Klaus says with a hint of mockery. "Be reasonable, Elena. It's a day of celebration. Do you really think I'd kill you here and now? At your own party?"

"Sounds dramatic enough," Elena says. "Why are you accosting me in a pantry of all places?"

"Couldn't pass up the opportunity to offer my congratulations in person. You seemed awfully busy out there, being hounded by socialites."

Elena flushes. "I'm going back. I suggest you leave. _Now_."

"Yeah, you probably should," Klaus grins. "Your newly arrived guests are simply bouncing to meet you."

Elena, hand poised on the doorknob, pauses. "What newly arrived guests?"

**0900**

Blair hasn't stopped scrutinizing the crowd since she'd got here. Nate's off in some corner entertaining his old rowing team, and it was highly suspicious that she still hadn't caught a glimpse of Small-town Seductress yet. Had this engagement party been _hers_ to host, she wouldn't leave her fiancé's side at all – especially with the sizeable diamond she'd have hinted very heavily to her Fantasy Fiancé to buy for her.

"You've got your midterm test face on all over again, Waldorf."

Dan sidles his way beside her, two glasses of champagne in his hands. She takes one without asking, but he doesn't protest, and she wonders if it had indeed been for her all along.

Not that she found it endearing or whatever.

It's only good manners, after all. Humphrey was learning.

The only response she gives him is a liberal gulp of her champagne. Dan gives her a _look_ , and says, "I know what you're planning."

"Come to bore me with your platitudes? Your _banal_ altruism?"

"You know those are all good things, right?"

"For a writer, I would've thought you'd steer away from all the clichés," Blair snips.

"For someone who insists _she_ should be a writer, _I_ would've thought you'd appreciate character development." Dan's look grows into something she can't describe. "This isn't you, Waldorf. High School you, maybe, but you're better than that."

Blair fishes a strawberry out of her champagne and pops it in her mouth. "So you're okay with Vanessa shoving her camera in everyone's faces, which is seriously a _regression_ in character growth, by the way, how she remains so _static_ throughout the years—"

"I see you're getting better at compliments."

"—but me, standing here, not even doing anything—"

" _Yet,_ " Dan presses. "Not doing anything _yet_."

"—I get the _some things never change_ speech, but you'll always think Vanessa's charming, _oh she's just being herself_."

Dan smiles a little, which throws her off. "Do I detect a little jealousy there?"

"Of course not," Blair sniffs.

**0890**

Predictably, Vanessa appears, along with a blonde with curls tumbling down her shoulders. "Hey guys. Met Caroline yet?"

Except she wasn't exactly introducing them as much as she was prompting them with the lens of her camera.

"Tell me again why I had to sign a waiver form earlier?" Caroline asks, looking very close to batting the camera out of her face.

"I'm filming a documentary. It's about the sanctimonious meeting of two worlds not much different from one another: Southern Royalty—" the camera pans into Caroline's face, "—and Manhattan Royalty. How different are they, really, underneath that green drip of old money? Will one eat the other? Will there be any survivors at all?" Vanessa zooms into Nate's nostrils from across the room.

Caroline glances at Blair, who looks bored, and then to Dan, who looks like he's actually weighing in on Vanessa's whole spiel. "Right. Are you going to be following us around all day, then?"

"Just pretend I'm not here."

"O…kay." Caroline turns to Blair. "Hi, we haven't met. I'm Caroline—"

"Forbes, one of the Founding Family members of Mystic Falls, established 1860. Forbes' net worth isn't anything to shout over, though the non-profit foundation your father set up for Emotional Trauma From Animal Attacks keeps all of you going." Blair pauses mid-stream to take a sip of her champagne. Dan looks a mixture of indignant and impressed, while Caroline –

"Did you have me investigated?" she asks, eyes narrowed.

"No, I had everyone in this room investigated," Blair corrects. "And then compiled, learned, and remembered the information. You're one of many, don't flatter yourself."

"And that is my cue to leave," Dan announces.

Blair cocks an eyebrow. "And where are you going?"

"To the corner of healthy discussion on academia." Dan points to a small group of people huddled around the cheese platter. "Heard that Klaus guy can speak seven languages. Gonna conjugate Finnish verbs with him."

Blair rolls her eyes, and is surprised to find Caroline's eyes rolling along with hers.

**0880**

" _Um?_ " is Serena's intelligent response to the pantry door not budging. She jiggles the door knob. She's about to put some pressure with her shoulder when it swings open, revealing a very frazzled-looking brunette.

A very frazzled-looking brunette she recognizes as one Elena Gilbert.

Who does not look like a Small-town Seductress. At all.

"Hi," Serena says, for lack of anything else to say.

"Hey," Elena says back. "Um, sorry about that, I just – needed some air."

"Yeah, I too find solace among pitted olives," Serena laughs, and then bites her lip. "Is it too soon for me to be asking you if you're okay? I'm Nate's best friend – and, evidently you're his fiancé now, so we should be somewhere … there. Are we there?"

Elena clears her throat. "No, it's – you're just being thoughtful. Hi, Serena. Nate talks highly of you. And Blair. And another guy, Dan, right? It's nice to finally have some faces to match the stories."

Serena nods, quelling the urge to ask what exactly Nate had said of all of them. "Chuck… talks about you too. Can't believe he met you first out of all of us. I'm glad you haven't run for the hills yet."

"He's nice enough to hang with." _I've dealt with worse_ , Elena doesn't add, thinking of Salvatores. Salvatores who apparently were prowling the pastry table right next door…

"Oh God," Elena slaps her hand to her mouth. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

Serena, very wisely, grabs napkins to preserve her Dolce and Gabbana cocktail dress.

**0870**

"Miss Mystic Falls—"

"Lacrosse tyrant—"

"—and organizer of some Mystic Falls beautification committee, whatever the hell that means—"

"—Nate mentioned you wanted to get into Yale? Why did you end up in NYU of all places?"

Caroline smiles.

Blair knows smiles.

That isn't a friendly, curious smile.

"I see you've information on me, too."

"I make it a point to know who my friend is getting trusty with," Caroline says airily.

"So do I," Blair says, teeth clenched in a poorly-masked smile.

"Let's not make it into a bonding thing."

"Let's not."

"End of Conversation #05," Vanessa mutters into her tape recorder.

**0860**

Blair all but drags Dan by his elbow away from the throaty laughter bursting around the end of a joke with a punchline that went, "And _he_ said, _No, Plato definitely would have!_ "

"I really don't think you should be showing off, Humphrey, when your French is barely passable," she hisses, grabbing a lemon tart off a passing tray.

"Not all of us crawled out of our mothers' wombs straight to the Louvre, Waldorf," Dan shoots, and in resignation takes an appetizer for himself as well. "That Klaus guy is really something else. Did you know he'd actually _read_ the original manuscripts of—"

Blair waved it off like Celine Dion perfume. "Yeah, sure, sounds interesting. It's forty minutes into the brunch and Elena still hasn't made an appearance—"

"Yeah, all your scrapbooking would go to _waste_. Waldorf, _how_ will you ever go on without telling her exactly what product her hair lacks?" Dan groans mockingly. "The travesty of not being able to put her in her place."

Blair widens her eyes. "Why must you assume every agenda with me involves maiming a reputation?"

Dan stares at her. "You really want to go there?"

"And just so you know, it wasn't a scrapbook, it was a binder. The tabs cascade."

**0850**

"So…" Serena says, finally understanding, "your ex is out there?"

"Ex _es_ ," Elena corrects. "And yes. Both of them. And one of them didn't really take the news so well—"

Elena misses Serena's wry smile. "You didn't expect he'd come, did you?"

"Not at all," Elena says.

"Well, no time like the present to face him!" Serena says brightly. She clambers to her feet and holds out her hand. "It's your party. Nate's out there talking about you with the biggest, dopiest, most lovesick smile I've ever seen on his face. Don't hide in the pantry."

"I'm worried he'll cause a scene," Elena admits, but stands anyway.

Serena's hand is warm wrapped around hers, and she gives her hand a small squeeze. "With Blair around? Never. Speaking of, you should meet her."

No sooner does she say that, the air is punctured by a long, shrill scream.

**0840**

"Klaus."

The Klaus in questions turns slowly at the call of his name, and Caroline can count, as if the second had been broken into pieces, the time it takes for him to take her in, and then smile.

The tick of her own pulse hesitates.

"Love," Klaus lets trip his tongue, "hello. I've been waiting."

"Had to get a dress," Caroline says; without realizing she had swung her hips so that her dress brushes his knees, her body moving of its own accord. It was as if her bones had sensed his. "Mystic Falls didn't have anything Upper East Side-worthy."

Klaus rakes his eyes appreciatively over her form. "And yet here you are, redefining couture."

"Urgh, I must have gone through a hundred dresses. Wish I had an entire vault of dresses at my disposal," Caroline jokes, but the laughter dies in her throat when she sees how _intense_ Klaus suddenly got—and she remembers the late afternoon sun skittering into his attic, Klaus on his knees straightening out the hem of her dress—

"…and I'm pretty sure I overpacked," Caroline hears herself finish saying. "Have you met Madame Satan yet?"

"Blair Waldorf? You mean the obvious mastermind behind all of this?" Klaus gestures expansively around the room.

"With her around, I feel like this thing is gonna draw out longer than she should." Caroline, of course, isn't talking about the party, but of something they had all pre-discussed not to mention by name, especially now in the presence of Vanessa.

Who is still tailing people around the party, nose in the flipped-screen of her camera.

"Well, good thing you packed enough to last the turn of a new century," Klaus says. Lightly he adds, "Would you like to come visit one of my—"

Damon elbows his way through champagne and shoulders, shooting a smirk. " _Blondie_. Rasputin."

"Headless corpse in about two minutes," Klaus greets with no smile.

Caroline eyes him over the rim of her champagne flute. "What took _you_?"

"Had to pick up a few things," Damon says vaguely, in that annoying way of his. He surveys the crowd with a hint of distaste. "Anyway, saddle up. Stefan came up with a plan."

Caroline's not sure, but somewhere in between the lope of chatter and tinkling music, she can swear she hears Klaus give a quiet snort.

**0830**

The way The Plan came into being was this:

Stefan woke up one Thursday morning and decided, quite grandly, that he was going to stop a wedding.

It just so happens that the next wedding coming up was that of Elena and Nathaniel's.

"Nate," Nathaniel corrects, slipping his hands into his thousand dollar Ralph Lauren pants and smiling so large his groomed eyebrows disappeared into his carefully-tussled-with-luxury-product hair. "And it's great to finally meet you."

"Likewise, Nate." _Thaniel,_ Stefan finished silently in his head. Nathaniel was gesturing grandly about some drink or other at the bartender, and his Daytona 'Spirit of Sendai Miyagi' Blue Dial Rolex glinted in the golden tilt of the overhead chandelier.

"So did you and Elena go to high school together?" Nathaniel asks, shifting foot to foot in his Barker Black Ostrich Cap Toes.

"Yeah," Stefan says. "We dated for four seasons."

Nathaniel chokes on his drink, and will probably have to set an appointment with Dr. Leonard Hochstein somewhere in Switzerland to check on his delicate trachea later.

"Oh, _Stefan_. Man, I knew you looked familiar – 'Lena showed me pictures, but it's been crazy today; never met so many of her friends in just one day. Never really _met_ any of her friends, period…"

' _Lena_ , Stefan processes this. Sure.

Nathaniel's Crest WhiteStrips-whitened teeth gleamed at him as he smiles. "Elena's an enigma when she wants to be."

"You tell me," Nathaniel laughs and it sounds fond, but to Stefan seemed terribly practised. "Me, I'm an open book. Elena will always answer when I ask, but sometimes… wish I didn't have to ask, you know?"

Not even an hour into the brunch and Nate's already slinging verbal abuse towards his beloved. Stefan raises his eyebrows, unimpressed. "So I heard you've been with not one but three of the women in this room?"

Nathaniel stops mid-laugh. "That came out of nowhere?"

"Just making sure Elena's made the right choice, that's all." Stefan smiles with nothing in his eyes.

"Brother, _what_ is the male equivalent of slut-shaming?" Damon worms his way into the conversation. "'Cause you're laying that one awfully thick right now."

"Damon," Stefan introduces shortly. "My brother."

"Ah," Nathaniel nods, rubbing his Zafiro Iridium-shaved chin. "Who invited you two again?"

**0820**

"You Elena friend?" Nate grunts.

Damon tries to speak as plainly as possible, so this silver spoon twerp can understand him. " _Yes_. Elena and I – have known each other – a _long_ time."

Stefan sends him a questioning look. Poor brother. Only ten minutes with Natey and he's already rubbed off on golden boy's slowness.

"Elena beautiful," Nate nods sagely as he sips his drink. "Me and Elena together forever."

Damon is sympathetic. "Sure, buddy. True love and all that Hallmark-approved jazz. That is, until you meet all the skeletons in her closet."

"Hworgh?" Nate tilts his head, looking utterly confused.

"Dang, sorry about that. Forgot to dumb it down for you." Damon clears his throat and enunciates heavily, " _She_ many _se_ crets."

"Case in point," Stefan says, and points to himself, "Did you know I was her epic love?"

"And _I_ her esteemed confidant?" Damon interjects.

"And _I_ the person who saved her from certain death?"

"And  _I_ the person who saved her from her  _other_ certain death?"

Nate, at this point, was looking close to tears as he tries to process this newfound information. "Me brain ouch."

"Yes, that happens," Damon nods. "Poor lamb. Maybe a vessel is breaking in your head. Nothing a good _crack_ won't fix…"

The smile on his face must have grown menacing, because Nate gulps and takes a step back. "Me go now—"

"No, _stay_ ," Damon implores. "We haven't even started on the icebreakers—!"

At that moment, a scream pierces the classical music, halting all conversations.

Elena crashes into the room, breathless, a hint of fear, but that damning, stubborn determination burning in her brown eyes. "Whatever it is that's happening, _stop!"_

And then, from a corner of the room—

"You lot really don't know how to throw a party, do you?" Kol drawls, wiping the corner of his mouth with a thumb, his other hand holding up a limp, dead girl.

Damon groans, waiting for the rest of the room to predictably start screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're almost to the wedding bits! do let me know what you think?


End file.
